Lloyd Blair

Among my many misreadings of how the collective English mind expresses itself through elections was to suppose that Boris Johnson, with his carefully cultivated image as an amiable oaf, could not overcome the corrupt machine created by leftist media darling Livingstone in London.

Chastened by the electorate's verdict, I have since then paid much closer attention to what Boris does and says than to how he presents himself. While it may be that he is whistling in the wind, his article in today's Telegraph has caused me to reconsider whether the Tories are quite as stupid as they often seem.

But look at what is happening to Labour! Look at the all-conquering party of Tony Blair. Look at the great humming, purring spin machine that propelled the People's Party to three election victories and humiliated a succession of Tory leaders. They are doing worse than they did under Kinnock. They are down to levels not seen since Michael Foot appeared in his donkey jacket; and with Harriet Harman's teeth locked in Mandy's throat we are beginning to detect the gurgling sound of meltdown.

Taking the broader view, arguably both the main parties have tried to muscle in on Lib Dem territory, and it may be that the bigger loser from that strategy may, after all, be Labour. The NuLabour pukes have alienated their core supporters far more than Cameron's NuTories have their own, who genuinely have nowhere else to go.

The old Labour Party rose to dominance at the expense of the old Liberal Party, whose moral authority was destroyed after it was hijacked by the completely unprincipled Lloyd George from the incompetent alcoholic Asquith. Lloyd George is the scumbag whose statue now adorns Parliament Square - courtesy of Blair, whose own career bears more than a passing resemblance to the Welsh Wizard's.

If the electorate, unnoticed by the media, has drawn the correct conclusion from Blair becoming ostentatiously wealthy as a direct result of the wars into which he pitched the country unprepared, and waged with criminal incompetence, his effect on the party he made over in his own image may well be akin to what Asquith and Lloyd George did to the party of Gladstone.